{"title":"寻找佐治亚州梅肯市宋氏姐妹的早期生活:三位在美国南部的中国留学生","authors":"Juanjuan Peng","doi":"10.1017/S1479591423000049","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article uses local history approaches to reconstruct the early lives of the Soong sisters at Wesleyan Female College in Macon, Georgia at the beginning of the twentieth century. The sisters' experiences as Chinese overseas students were situated in the histories of American South and of Asian Americans. By examining the sisters' transition to Wesleyan, their everyday lives on campus, and their occasional off-campus encounters with Maconites, the article argues that the “Southernness” of Wesleyan and Macon distinguished the sisters' experiences from other Chinese overseas students that are more familiar to Chinese historians. Because of the relative absence of Chinese residents in this small Southern town, the girls were rarely categorized with Chinese laborers and hardly felt the strong anti-Chinese sentiments that were experienced by students who went to Western states and large cities. Similarly, the slow adoption of new utilitarian courses at this elite Southern female college also meant the sisters were neither trained as qualified homemakers nor as career women like many other American-educated Chinese women in their generation. They were taught to become housewives that played important, unpaid social roles – a path that they would later follow.","PeriodicalId":51971,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Asian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2023-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Searching the early lives of the Soong sisters in Macon, Georgia: three Chinese overseas students in the American South\",\"authors\":\"Juanjuan Peng\",\"doi\":\"10.1017/S1479591423000049\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"Abstract This article uses local history approaches to reconstruct the early lives of the Soong sisters at Wesleyan Female College in Macon, Georgia at the beginning of the twentieth century. The sisters' experiences as Chinese overseas students were situated in the histories of American South and of Asian Americans. By examining the sisters' transition to Wesleyan, their everyday lives on campus, and their occasional off-campus encounters with Maconites, the article argues that the “Southernness” of Wesleyan and Macon distinguished the sisters' experiences from other Chinese overseas students that are more familiar to Chinese historians. Because of the relative absence of Chinese residents in this small Southern town, the girls were rarely categorized with Chinese laborers and hardly felt the strong anti-Chinese sentiments that were experienced by students who went to Western states and large cities. Similarly, the slow adoption of new utilitarian courses at this elite Southern female college also meant the sisters were neither trained as qualified homemakers nor as career women like many other American-educated Chinese women in their generation. They were taught to become housewives that played important, unpaid social roles – a path that they would later follow.\",\"PeriodicalId\":51971,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"International Journal of Asian Studies\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.5000,\"publicationDate\":\"2023-03-07\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"International Journal of Asian Studies\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479591423000049\",\"RegionNum\":3,\"RegionCategory\":\"社会学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"0\",\"JCRName\":\"ASIAN STUDIES\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Asian Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479591423000049","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"ASIAN STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
Searching the early lives of the Soong sisters in Macon, Georgia: three Chinese overseas students in the American South
Abstract This article uses local history approaches to reconstruct the early lives of the Soong sisters at Wesleyan Female College in Macon, Georgia at the beginning of the twentieth century. The sisters' experiences as Chinese overseas students were situated in the histories of American South and of Asian Americans. By examining the sisters' transition to Wesleyan, their everyday lives on campus, and their occasional off-campus encounters with Maconites, the article argues that the “Southernness” of Wesleyan and Macon distinguished the sisters' experiences from other Chinese overseas students that are more familiar to Chinese historians. Because of the relative absence of Chinese residents in this small Southern town, the girls were rarely categorized with Chinese laborers and hardly felt the strong anti-Chinese sentiments that were experienced by students who went to Western states and large cities. Similarly, the slow adoption of new utilitarian courses at this elite Southern female college also meant the sisters were neither trained as qualified homemakers nor as career women like many other American-educated Chinese women in their generation. They were taught to become housewives that played important, unpaid social roles – a path that they would later follow.
期刊介绍:
International Journal of Asian Studies (IJAS) is an interdisciplinary, English-language forum for research in the humanities and social sciences. Its purpose is to foster multi-directional communication among the global Asian studies community. IJAS examines Asia on a regional basis, emphasizing patterns and tendencies that go beyond the borders of individual countries. The editorial committee is particularly interested in interdisciplinary and comparative studies whose arguments are strengthened by rigorous historical analysis. The committee encourages submissions from Asian studies researchers globally, and especially welcomes the opportunity to introduce the work of Asian scholars to an English-language readership.